Railroad tie reducer

ABSTRACT

A material reduction device by which railroad ties may be quickly and effectively reduced to a finely divided form that promotes the disposal and ultimate decomposition thereof. Hardened drill bits are carried in a rotating head that is turned by a motor at a predetermined speed whereby the ties coming in contact with the drill bits of the rotating head are macerated into small pieces that are more readily subjected to natural decomposition or incineration.

United States Patent [191 Bakker et a1.

[451 May 14, 1974 1 1 RAILROAD TIE REDUCER [75] Inventors: Lubertus Bakker; Eugene D.

Krumm, both of Wellsville, NY.

[73] Assignee: The Air Preheater Company, Inc., Wellsville, NY.

22 Filed: Aug. 16, 1972 21 Appl. No.: 281,083

[52] US. Cl 241/278 R, 144/176, 144/241, 241/280, 241/296 [51] Int. Cl. B02c 7/12 [58] Field of Search 24l/273.1, 2732, 277, 241/278 R, 280, 293, 296; 144/176, 241; 198/173, 168

[561 References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,652,077 9/1953 Alexander 144/176 2,729,146 l/1956 Wandel 241/296 X 3,147,850 9/1964 Ronceray 198/168 3,289,719 12/1966 Gunn 144/176 X 3,534,848 10/1970 Resener 198/173 X 3,570,566 3/1971 McCreery..... 144/176 X 3,661,333 5/1972 Smith 144/176 X 3,746,062 7/1973 Nystrom et a1. 144/176 Primary Examiner-Granville Y. Custer, Jr. Assistant Examiner-Howard N. Goldberg Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Wayne H. Lang {57] ABSTRACT A material reduction device by which railroad ties may be quickly and effectively reduced to a finely divided form that promotes the disposal and ultimate decomposition thereof. Hardened drill bits are carried in a rotating head that is turned by a motor at a predetermined speed whereby the ties coming in contact with the drill bits of the rotating head are macerated into small pieces that are more readily subjected to natural decomposition or incineration.

3 Claims, 4 Drawing Figures BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION l. Field of the Invention This invention relates generally to a device by which discarded wooden railroad ties may be quickly and effectively reduced or shredded to a particle-sized mass that facilitates disposal.

2. Description of Prior Art In present apparatus used for the destruction of discarded railroad ties, brute-force methods such as chopping with sharpened knives, crushing, cutting, and forcing through hammer mills are used. These devices consume considerable amounts of energy to operate and they soon lose their effectiveness due to the dulling of knives, the abrasion of equipment, the jamming of grate bars and the clogging of screens.

Thus the use of existing equipment for railroad tie elimination is therefore both expensive and ineffective. Moreover, railroad ties are frequently embedded with spikes, nails, and other metallic objects that dull the knives, clog the screens or otherwise damage the shredding apparatus. The apparatus of this invention would perform the desired operation both effectively and economically for extended periods of time without destructively affecting equipment used in the operation.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention therefore relates to a device for macerating discarded railroad ties and the like to assist in eliminating the problems accompanying their replacement and disposal.

There are, in the United States alone, over 338,000 miles of railroad track wherein each mile of track has approximately 3,000 wooden clossties weighing from 150 -l80 lbs. Depending upon the type and usage of track, an average of from 800 1,000 ties in each mile of track require immediate replacement, and indications are that this figure will even progressively increase so that it is felt that almost all track that exists today should be replaced in the next decade. To meet this increase in demand for ite replacement will require a substantial increase in the rate of replacement over the past performance of the industry.

In the past, whole ties were removed and used for fencing, construction or land reclamation. More recently however, the railroads have been using a tie shear apparatus for the removal of old ties which first cut each tie into a multiplicity of smaller pieces so that the pieces may then be more easily handled. While it is true that this process facilitates tie removal, it also destroys the economic value the tie once had, because the wooden tie has been destroyed as a structural member. Moreover even though the ties are more easily removed, their ultimate disposal remains a significant problem.

It is therefore an objective of this invention to provide a device that reduces railroad ties or their fragmented portions to a shredded or finely divided form that is more readily subjected to combustion, pyrolyzation, surface disposal or landfill operations.

More particularly, it is an objective to provide a macerator for railroad ties that operates effectively irrespective of the size of the tie or the foreign objects embedded in the tie to be disposed.

It is a further objective of the invention to provide a macerating device that requires a minimum amount of motivating power, and it is still another objective of this invention to provide a macerating device that operates for long periods of time without requiring mechanical adjustment or repair.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING The present invention may be better understood and its numerous advantages will become apparent to those skilled in the art by reference to the accompanying drawing in which the FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a tie macerating device constructed according to my invention, and

FIGS. 2, 3 and 4 show various forms of drill bits used therein.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Referring now to FIG. l of the drawing, reference numeral 10 shows a circular head that is mounted on an axially extending drive shaft for rotation about its axis by a motor 12 or other equivalent drive means. The head 10 is preferably formed with a concave surface having mounted on the concave surface thereof a series of drill bits 16, each mounted for rotation about their own axis. The drill bits are generally of a type known as hard rock drills with the periphery thereof formed to provide a series of cutting or crushing edges 22A, 22B or 22C that form a composite surface on the face of head 10 preferably lying at an oblique angle with respect to the shaft which connects the head 10 to motor 12.

Material to be shredded is moved toward the circular head 10 along a line parallel to the axis of rotation of the rotating head. The material to be macerated is fed on an endless belt-type feeder 26 that is provided with a series of spaced projections in the form of projections 32 that push the material being fed into the shredder. The top run of the belt-type feeder 26 is moved toward the moving drill bits of the rotating head at a surface speed compatable with the shredding or macerating rate of the device by a driving belt 34 driven by a motor 36.

The rotating head 10, together with the belt-type feeder 26, is enclosed in a housing 38 that is open at one end to permit the entrance of feeder 26 and the material thereon that is supported on suitable brackets 30 and rollers 32. The housing 38 has an end plate traversed by the drive shaft that extends between the motor 12 and the macerating head 16. The portion of the housing 38 above the feeder 26 and laterally spaced therefrom is provided with a plurality of sharpened projections 40 that restrain the railroad ties or other material on the feeder 26 from being tossed about by the rotating head 16 when forced intocontact therewith. A clean-out door 42 in the chamber 44 at the lower portion of housing 38 permits removal of the shredded mass of material after the railroad ties have been mac-- erated.

There are a great many various sizes and shapes of standard rock drills commercially available on the industrial market, any of which might be suitable for a particular application. However, three main categories of bits predominate in the manner shown by FIGS. 2, 3 and 4.

FIG. 2 shows a drill bit formed with a circumferential tooth 22A that is formed from hardened steel. The bit 16 is held rotation in a bracket 25 whereby it may be rotated about its own longitudinal axis when the rotating head contacts the advancing railroad ties. Such an arrangement is satisfactory for most shredding operations and it represents an economical but long-lasting form of drill bit.

If there are an excessive amount of foreign objects embedded in the railroad ties, a somewhat more effective and longer lasting cutter having tooth-like projections 228 as shown in FIG. 3 may be substituted therefor. For still more difficult macerating operations having an almost limitless operating life, a drill bit 22C as shown in FIG. 3 with tungsten-carbide inserts 42 may be utilized. Such a macerating device would remain in continuous operating condition for long periods of time and would require only occasional upkeep.

Although it is not illustrated in the drawings, each drill bit on the face of head 10 mayalso be independently rotated about its own axis in the manner used in a standard drilling operation to provide an additional cutting or macerating action to each rotating drill bit, and constant use of each entire cutting surface.

While it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that other modifications and changes may be made without departing from the spirit of the invention, it is intended presenting the railroad ties to the annular cutting edges of the drill bits whereby said ties are abraded upon contact with the drill bits mounted on the rotating head.

2. A shredding device for railroad ties as defined in claim 1 including a housing that surrounds the feeding means and the rotatable head to limit movement of the railroad ties along an axis substantially parallel to the axis of rotation of said rotating head.

3. A shredding device for railroad ties as defined in claim 2 including projections extending inward from said housing toward said feeding means to increase the frictional contact with and preclude excessive movement of said railroad ties or the like when contacted by the drill bits on the rotatable head. 

1. A shredding device for railroad ties and the like comprising a rotatable head, means for rotating said head about its axis, a plurality of hardened drill bits having a plurality of annular cutting edges on the lateral sides thereof, means extending axially through each drill bit having a support at opposite ends thereof for rotatability mounting the drill bits on the face of said rotatable head, and a feeding means for forcibly presenting the railroad ties to the annular cutting edges of the drill bits whereby said ties are abraded upon contact with the drill bits mounted on the rotating head.
 2. A shredding device for railroad ties as defined in claim 1 including a housing that surrounds the feeding means and the rotatable head to limit movement of the railroad ties along an axis substantially parallel to the axis of rotation of said rotating head.
 3. A shredding device for railroad ties as defined in claim 2 including projections extending inward from said housing toward said feeding means to increase the frictional contact with and preclude excessive movement of said railroad ties or the like when contacted by the drill bits on the rotatable head. 